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Another example of the trend in supplying network-ready “boomboxes” is Denon with its latest “Cocoon” series of speaker docks. Like the recently-announced Pioneer speaker units that I covered in this site lately, these support Apple AirPlay and the universal DLNA standards for audio playback from a PC or smartphone via a Wi-Fi network.

But these units also support access to the global fun of Internet radio with 3 local presets as well as playback from USB Mass-Storage Devices i.e. memory keys or directly-connected iPhones and iPod Touch devices. They have an integrated display and a dockable remote control so you can manage the tunes from Internet radio, DLNA Media Servers or other sources without having to use the source device’s control surface.

One question I have about these devices is whether they can be set up to become a Wi-Fi Direct “master device” for ad-hoc music-playback wireless networks. If you are not sure about this, you could use a “MiFi” as an access point for these networks if the location doesn’t have a suitable network.

The series is finished in a black or white finish and comes in two distinct variants – a larger “Cocoon Home” unit which can only work of external power and a smaller “Cocoon Portable” unit which can run off a battery pack for 5 hours as well as external power. Of course, I would expect the smaller unit not to put out much in the way of sound output due to its size but the Cocoon works with a classic bi-amped two-way speaker setup with a woofer and tweeter per channel while the Cocoon Portable has a full-range speaker per channel.